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Zeroing in on Com.X comics

After some bumps on the road after their launch in 2000, the British comics publisher Com.X Comics is quickly turning into a publisher to watch. It became best known for the hero series Cla$$war, which took the idea of superheroes in a more realistic and brutal direction, not unlike contemporaries such as The Authority did at the time. But the aforementioned bumps on the road — scheduling, loss of artists — saw Com.X fail to follow through immediately on their first hints of success. But all that is changing.

In 2008 Com.X reorganized and recommitted itself as a publisher, organizing a new slate of titles that’s coming out in 2011. Ross Mackintosh’s Seeds offers a touching autobiographical story of a man dealing with his father’s death from cancer, and the faux-journalism coverage of a super-hero universe with 2010’s Forty-Five opened the door for an entire line of titles beginning with the upcoming Blue Spear. Their next big title is Babble, a project by Lee Robson and Bryan Coyle concerning a secret universal language and why it’s been shrouded from the public for centuries.

And Com.X’s eye for talent continues with the use of phenomenal artists like Cosmo White. During its early years they showed a remarkable eye for talent by being among the first to note uber-talented artists like Joshua Middleton, Steve McNiven, Cary Nord, Trevor Hairsine, Ben Oliver, Travel Foreman and Neil Googe. Those talents quickly found work at Marvel and DC, but Com.X continues to find the next big things before the big publishers do.